Courier’s Sales Off Overall, but Digital Business Up Sharply

NORTH CHELMSFORD, MA—Jan. 18, 2011—Courier Corp., one of America’s leading book manufacturers and specialty publishers, announced results for the quarter ended Dec. 25, 2010, the first quarter of its 2011 fiscal year.

Revenues for the quarter were $61.2 million, down 3 percent from last year’s first-quarter sales of $63.1 million. Net income for the quarter was $1.7 million, compared to $2.8 million in the first quarter of fiscal 2010.

However, the company reaffirmed its confidence in the remainder of the fiscal year, citing a history of quarter-to-quarter fluctuations in the timing of orders as well as major long-term agreements with two of its largest customers. Based on these and other factors, Courier raised its full-year earnings guidance by $.05 to a range of $.90 to $1.20 per diluted share.

First-quarter results were off in both of Courier’s business segments. At the same time, both segments benefited from the successful startup of Courier Digital Solutions, which has enabled improved efficiency in short-run production, leading to an increasing flow of manufacturing orders from Courier Publishing as well as other educational and trade publishers.

“While our new fiscal year got off to a slow start, we remain confident that we will hit our targets for the full year,“ said Courier Chairman and CEO James F. Conway III. “A major factor in our first-quarter shortfall was the timing of manufacturing orders in the religious market. Yet our relationship with our largest religious customer has never been better, and we are in the early stages of a new multi-year agreement which is already contributing to an expanded worldwide role for Courier.

”At the same time, we had excellent performance from Courier Digital Solutions, which is capitalizing on the accelerating trend towards customized college textbooks. And on the publishing side, we saw the first sales increase at Creative Homeowner in more than 3 years.